Caleb wracked his mind for other possible ways to deal with the town, but he had already considered all the things that could go wrong if he used them. There was a reason why he had originally worked hard to investigate the town before committing to anything. The town used several different water sources, so if he wanted to poison them via water, he had to make sure to poison all of them.
The amount of effort that was required to do all that was immense, and pulling it off was impossible to do by himself. He might get away with poisoning one or two sources, but not all of them. He still couldn't believe they had so many sources of water to drink from. The game certainly hadn't mentioned it, which Caleb firmly believed was unfair.
Starting a fire would be hard since they had so much access to water. Also, it occasionally rained. It didn't rain that often, but it was unpredictable,
Caleb could honestly say that the leader was a jerk. Okay, he would have to admit that the guy had a point about her focusing too much time on the baby demon rats. However, Caleb was certain that the guy was just looking for another reason to pick on her. He certainly hadn't shown himself to be a decent leader to her so far, and Caleb had barely seen them interact.He had only seen them twice, which said a lot about their characters. As he mused over how she was being treated unfairly, Grace was struck with indecision. She didn't want to abandon the baby rats. They clearly needed someone to take care of them. If she left them on the streets, they would surely die from starvation or from animals. She didn't miss how the animals snarled at them.Grace couldn't understand why they were reacting so badly. The baby rats were so well behaved. It was honestly worrying. Admittedly, she didn't like rats, but they looked so cute, and they reminded her of the rat she had encountered in the fores
The baby demon rats just stared at him, and Caleb felt like an idiot for asking. Of course they didn't. It was unrealistic for him to think otherwise. How could they when even the grown demon rats he had serving him had trouble understanding him? The changes in their stats didn't change that. As he was about to hurry them away from the town, one of them stepped forward and bobbed its head.Caleb stared for a moment before asking, "Do you understand me?"It bobbed its head again, and he was ready to flip his lid. They really did understand him, or at least the one in front of him did. However, why didn't it speak? His previous question hadn't been if the baby demon rats could understand him. He had asked if they could talk, and it nodded its head. Did that mean it could or not?"Can you say something?" he asked.The baby demon rat seemed to consider his request before saying, "Mr. Rat."Out of all the things it could have chosen to say, it chose that. The others also started clamoring
Caleb huffed and puffed as he took a moment to wipe the sweat from his furry head with a paw. It was exhausting running around and making sure the baby demon rats didn't somehow get themselves killed, but they had finally done it. They had successfully built a new nest. Of course, it wasn't as great as his previous lair, but it was slightly better than how the baby demon rats were living.At least it wasn't a hole in the ground that was only covered with bushes and leaves. The baby demon rats certainly seemed proud of themselves, seeing how they were squeaking happily at the sight of it. He didn't see a reason why he should burst their balloon, and he allowed them to have their happy little dance around it. The corners of his mouth twitched at the sight."Good job," he finally said before nudging them towards it. "Now get inside."The baby demon rats swarmed into the makeshift nest and made themselves comfortable. Once they were settled inside, he decided to join them and test how com
Unbeknownst to Caleb, who had fallen asleep after the baby demon rats did, they had actually been pretending to be sleeping. The moment they were certain he wouldn't wake up, all their eyes snapped open at once. They stared at him with their beady eyes before turning their attention to each other. They knew very well that he was a deep sleeper, so he wouldn't easily wake up.That didn't mean they would start shouting, as one whispered, "King doesn't see anything.""Must keep it that way. Can't trouble king," another said. "King did a lot for us weaklings. No adult form, but king cares for us. Can't let down.""What can do? King is better," said one of the baby demon rats with distress in its voice."Grow stronger," said a different baby demon rat."How ?" another asked. "King help, but we still weak.""Human mother helped. Find human mother and grow stronger," someone chimed in.However, the idea was immediately shut down. "Bad humans near human mother? They kill us. She weak."All of
Caleb decided to hold off on dealing with the corpse so he could check on the baby demon rats. They might have woken up and seen what had happened. Approaching the nest, he glanced over at the sleeping baby demon rats. He frowned at the sight. The fact that they were still asleep meant that whatever happened had occurred either without a sound or much noise, or they were just deep sleepers.Well, it was time to wake them up anyway, and he nudged each of them awake. Pushing them to leave the nest, he watched as they stopped to stare at the corpse. They must think he brought it back for them to eat, so he needed to make sure they didn't try to eat it. He didn't want to think about what would happen if they took a bite out of it and it was poisoned or diseased."You will help me move it away from the nest and bury it," he said once he had them all lined up in front of him.The baby demon rats stared at him for a moment before glancing at each other. They didn't say a single word, but it
Caleb wanted to demand a refund. Why did the baby demon rats have [Poison Resistance]? More importantly, when had they gotten it? He didn't remember seeing it when he first checked their information. Had they gotten it while they had been separated? How? What had happened while they were with Grace? Did they test poison on them?He could imagine the rest of the hero party purposely feeding the baby demon rats posioned cheese, but there was no way Grace would do that. She could obviously tell how hostile they were, so there was no way she would leave them unsupervised. That still didn't explain the new skill. If it was just one of them, he could wave it off as it being some random chance. However, every single one of them had it."How did they get [Poison Restiance]?" he muttered to himself.While he was distracted, the baby demon rats glanced at each other. They were confused by his confusion. Was there something wrong with having [Poison Resistance]? It was a skill they had obtained
Caleb found himself really considering the idea. If they threw the poisoned deer meat in, then they would be able to poison the water supply. Well, at least one of them. If they really wanted to make sure they poisoned everyone, they had to poison all the water sources. Now that he had the baby demon rats with him, it might actually be possible to pull it off.However, he had to worry about the timing as well as a few other details. He wasn't sure how long it would take the poisoned deer meat to poison the water. Caleb also wasn't sure if it was a good idea to let the baby demon rats go on their own. It would be more efficient and increase the chances of a successful poisoning, but they had already gotten into trouble before when not supervised.There were also the heroes. They would undoubtedly be given a quest to deal with the poison and find the culprit. It was like putting a target on their backs and telling them to come after them. As he struggled to come to a decision, the baby
Despite thinking this, Caleb felt a twinge of sadness. He really thought of them as his own kids. Even though he was too young to have any, he had cared for them as if he were their father. Of course he could excuse it as needing demons that would serve him, but he wasn't completely blind to the truth. That's why it hit him so hard to know that they were taking advantage of him.Unbeknownst to him, the trio were thinking about how the king would be happy with their hard work. They had already done their job by throwing the deer meat in. None of them could quite understand why he wanted them to do it, but they figured it had to be a great plan. They had considered throwing the rabbit they killed when they arrived into the water too. However, it seemed like a waste.Instead, they should bring it to the king as an offering. He hadn't touched the deer and even said to throw it away. Their king must not like deer meat. Perhaps he would like deer meat. Unfortunately, even a rabbit was diffi